I think SPCR have done very well with graphic cards reviews within the last year or so - many of the interesting cards show up in a review.

Though, I think the VGA reviews in general can be improved - if SPCR choosed an aftermarket cooler or two, to try out with each reviewed card, it would be super. For quiet operation, an aftermarket cooler is often required.

A couple of suggestions for cooler choise: An Accelero (cheap and passive) and a Zalman VF-1000 (fan and small).

Both should be reasonably easy to install, widely compatible and since the test platform is well standardized, the results should be comparable. Temp measurements at idle and full load, would give a good idea of performance.

I dont know how much work this will require in the real world - it sounds simple, when writing it

Thanks for the review, it tells you basically everything you need to know in terms of power consumption and what sort of after-market cooler you would need for it.

ATI seem to have given up on PowerPlay for their high end cards. It's a shame because it worked really well with the previous generation. My guess is that it probably has something to do with the GDDR5 RAM used. If you set the BIOS to underclock the RAM on a GDDR5 card it will occasionally freeze.

When reviews first started popping up for HD4890's, I was surprised by some of the results... But the general consensus now (especially with a solid SPCR article about it) is that it's really not all that efficient. And for gaming benchmarks at high resolutions, it's usually only a couple frames per second ahead of GTX260. It doesn't seem like an awful card, but it's not the power efficient PC gamer's dream, either.

shleepy wrote:When reviews first started popping up for HD4890's, I was surprised by some of the results... But the general consensus now (especially with a solid SPCR article about it) is that it's really not all that efficient. And for gaming benchmarks at high resolutions, it's usually only a couple frames per second ahead of GTX260. It doesn't seem like an awful card, but it's not the power efficient PC gamer's dream, either.

I think it would be a great idea to include a section in each review on how suitable the graphics cards are for after-market coolers. Assessing stock fans is useful, but for a truly silent system you need a passive cooler.

Questions are: What aftermarket coolers would fit, and Can passive coolers adequately cool at load?

This article, just like the HD4870 Matrix one contains factual errors regarding Radeon BIOS Editor. Each powerplay state (power saving, UVD, 3D, throttling) has three separate clock modes (low, medium, high) and it is the latter that are shown in green, yellow and red, not the different powerplay states as the article claims.

Woolley wrote:Questions are: What aftermarket coolers would fit, and Can passive coolers adequately cool at load?

Considering the layout is very similar to HD4870, I'd say any 4870 compatible cooler would fit 4890 just fine. With the redesigned and improved VRM circuitry that section of the card should no longer reach the blistering temepratures that killed some adventurous 4870 owners cards, leaving more room for silent coolers. There won't be any aftermarket passive coolers though, the sheer scope of such a beast would be enough to send the metal exchange soaring

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